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Who's in charge here?

I wonder if whoever came up with the saying "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" could have been thinking of government. That condition so often seems the case way with state and federal bureaucrats. Under both the federal No Child Left Behind act and Indiana Public Law 221, schools that underperform for a certain amount of time can face severe penalties, up to and including being taken over by the state. But the state and federal laws set different standards, so it's not exactly clear when the state needs to step in. Still, the state is thinking about the situation:

And it's not completely clear who would take over an underperforming school -- the governor's office or the state education superintendent, Bearce said.

"It's somewhat nebulous at this point," Bearce said. "It's not something that's easy to figure out, especially in Indiana, which is a local control state."

Nebulous. Right. Since there are plenty of public schools that are on probation and not getting any better, maybe it's time to start considering some concrete plans.